328 APPENDIX. 
the general danger, he was immediately surrounded by the 
very people with whom he had been living on terms of 
friendly intercourse: their assegais were uplifted to dispatch 
him, and he would in a moment have been put to death, 
had he not urged that Pato had pledged himself for his 
security. Execution was accordingly stayed until this point 
had been ascertained, and the answer returned was, that the 
lives of the aggressors should be the penalty of any infraction 
of his promise thus given to the individual in question. No 
sooner had his will been delivered, than the very persons so 
ready to act as the ministers of vengeance were at once 
changed to warm and zealous friends and protectors, and 
actually escorted him safely within the Colonial boundary. 
In the evening the troops which had been stationed at 
Fort Wiltshire arrived in town, having abandoned that post. 
A great many families of the Dutch farmers also reached 
town with the remnant of their property. During the 
night almost every man was under arms, in hourly expec- 
tation of an attack, it bemg well known that the country 
round the town was entirely in the occupation of the enemy. 
Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday, the commotion was 
partly hushed; no movement of importance was made on 
either side. ‘The enemy, it appeared, was busily employed 
in conveying beyond the colonial boundaries the immense 
booty of which it had plundered the colony, and completing 
the work of ruin by the pillage of the deserted habitations, 
and the final destruction of them by fire. On our part the 
most active exertions were making to collect a force suffi- 
ciently numerous to take the field, and also to place the 
town in a proper posture of defence. Barricades have been 
thrown up in various parts of it, calculated to break the 
rush of the assailants, should they pour down in large 
masses, as is their usual custom when executing a bold and 
